Had an incident at my job and I'm really curious if this was blown out of proportion. For starters, our pay is based on a computer timeclock system. Nice and neat and efficient system. But we also have a written schedule roster. Most people are on regular schedules, some are flexible, but its generally understood that its not a strict guarantee of out times and certainly not a binding contract. Nor does anyone get in trouble for coming in early and tardiness is rarely punished. It is quite informal, has no dates, only the days of the week. It has no manager signature, no employee signatures, and no information regarding schedule policies. We constantly ask “is this next week's schedule?” because of how confusing this system is. This schedule gets updated frequently to explain people's absences or shift changes.
An employee of several years was accidentally scheduled for a shift they weren't prepared to work. Working it also would have resulted in the store being overstaffed. He informed two separate managers on duty that he shouldn't be on the roster that day and they okayed his absence. The employee was leaving for the day, and took it upon himself to casually edit the schedule with the new information. None of the managers said anything or called him later about it.
Come monday of the following week, the area supervisor who outranks all the managers in question including the store manager came to interrogate the employee directly about what happened and from what I overheard, it wasn't a pleasant conversation.
So it turns out that someone complained that he changed his own schedule. I know who that someone is and I also know he's a bit of a “good old boy” with the company. These two employees resent each other and everyone knows it. The Area Supervisor's argument was “what if Bob or whoever decided they wanted the night off and saw (employee's name) change their shift, so they do it too.”
I mean, I get what he's saying, but if he is hiring such unreliable and shady people that would do such a thing, that's their problem, isn't it? And why is such an informal penciled-in spreadsheet the official schedule? I've looked it up, there is no policy regarding a written schedule anywhere in the employee handbook, which isn't surprising given the company is so small with only a few locations so far. So basically this poor employee crossed some invisible line and got broiled for it by the meanest control-freak supervisor we have. He hasn't come in since that argument and is now talking to the HR person.
What a shitshow over such a triviality.